Reader Forum: Mobile and cloud – A marriage made in heaven?

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but maintain some editorial control so as to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at:dmeyer@ardenmedia.comortford@ardenmedia.com.
Cloud computing and mobility are two of the biggest trends hitting IT departments today. The two complement each other for the most part – being able to access content anytime, anywhere is one of the key advantages of cloud computing, and the proliferation of new mobile devices further increases that advantage. However, there are some important considerations that businesses should be aware of when mobilizing the cloud. Following are a couple of the issues and guidelines for how businesses can take advantage of this match made in heaven to increase employee productivity.
Check out these predictions: Gartner estimates the cloud market at $150 billion by 2013, and that within two years, up to 20% of companies will own no IT assets at all. According to Morgan Stanley, by 2012, the number of smart phones sold in the market will be greater than notebooks; and furthermore, Juniper Research predicts the mobile cloud computing market will reach $9.5 billion by 2014, with the majority driven by businesses.
In our always-on culture, the benefits of a mobile workforce are clear. A recent iPass Mobile Workforce Report found that over 94% of mobile employees surveyed used their smart phone/cell phone for both work and personal business. Even among iPad and tablet PC users, a surprising 90.6% planned to use it for work. Having direct access to business critical data online or offline via a mobile device enables faster processing of requests and leads to improved productivity and revenues. And the rewards are not just monetary; quicker response time with customers leads to greater satisfaction, increasing brand image and loyalty.
While cloud computing and mobility certainly seems like a match made in heaven, there are some obstacles that businesses must overcome. One is security. IDC recently estimated that 70% or more of enterprise data now resides in some form on mobile devices, and remarkably, approximately three out of four organizations lack comprehensive formalized policies for dealing with mobile devices and data. IT managers need to look at security within the devices very seriously, beyond device PINs. For example, ensuring mobile devices have on board data encryption and that sensitive content cannot be transferred from the device to external memory cards. Losing a smart phone is far easier than a laptop; ensuring remote wipe capabilities and device management should be evaluated as part of the overall mobile strategy.
Another obstacle is that the proliferation of devices and mobile operating systems within the business adds to the challenge of ensuring the mobile cloud application works across different devices. Cloud computing platforms such as salesforce.com and Google Apps allow access to the data via their mobile applications on all the major mobile OS platforms and also via API’s that enable businesses to create custom applications that work both offline and online.
Given these and other challenges and complexities, here are some questions that businesses should answer to guide them in enabling cloud solutions on mobile devices.
1. What content should be made available on the mobile device?
Not all business applications should be made mobile. Companies should think about which use cases combined with mobile hardware capabilities enable their employees to be more productive compared to just using the desktop and focus on mobilizing applications. For example, a mobile app that simplifies how sales reps do call reports from the road makes sense; an app to facilitate a quarterly approval of some task does not.
2. What should the device/form factor and OS strategy be?
Businesses should decide which form factor (tablet, smart phone, rugged device) best meets its needs. For example, a large manufacturer of medical devices recently wanted to make their latest product information available instantly to their mobile workforce. They purchased tablets to allow access to the content online and offline with a visual user interface to easily find the product information. The solution not only helped them with the latest product information, but also enabled compliance with regulations and reduced marketing costs.
As well, businesses should determine their mobile OS strategy based on security, such as on board data encryption and device management. They should also evaluate how extensible the OS platform is and what API’s are provided to integrate with on board hardware as well as accessories.
3. What development platform should be used?
The device and OS strategy could impact the development platform choice. For example, if a company expects their employees to buy their own devices, it would be difficult to support different operating systems. Thinking about development platforms such as Adobe AIR or HTML5 allows for the same UI across similar form factors and different operating systems. They can also help maintain one code base to ultimately reduce support and maintenance costs.
4. How usable are the applications on mobile devices?
Businesses need to ensure their cloud applications are designed for the form factor and take advantage of the real estate. The applications should have a consistent look and feel across form factors to reduce the learning curve and allow mobile employees to easily go about doing their jobs. Ensuring that applications are smart and context aware increases their usability, and simple design choices like wizard-based UI’s and limiting the amount of data entry will help increase adoption.
These considerations are just the beginning of what it takes to implement a successful cloud mobility strategy. While the rewards of a mobile cloud far outweigh the challenges, businesses must be smart in their deployments to ensure a long and healthy relationship between cloud and mobile.